Robert Jervis

Adlai E. Stevenson Professor of International Politics, Department of Political Science

Robert Jervis is Adlai E. Stevenson Professor of International Politics at Columbia University. His most recent book is Why Intelligence Fails: Lessons from the Iranian Revolution and the Iraq War (Cornell University Press, 2010). His System Effects: Complexity in Political Life (Princeton University Press, 1997) was a co-winner of the APSA’s Psychology Section Best Book Award, and The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution (Cornell University Press, 1989) won the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order. He is also the author of The Logic of Images in International Relations (Princeton University Press, 1970; 2d ed., Columbia University Press, 1989), Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton University Press, 1976), The Illogic of American Nuclear Strategy (Cornell University Press, 1984), American Foreign Policy in a New Era (Routledge, 2005), and over 150 other publications.

Jervis was President of the American Political Science Association in 2000-01 and has received career achievement awards from the International Society of Political Psychology and ISA’s Security Studies Section. In 2006 he received the National Academy of Science’s tri-annual award for behavioral sciences contributions to avoiding nuclear war and has received honorary degrees from Oberlin College and the University of Venice. He was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1978-79 and is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Academy of Political and Social Science and the American Philosophical Society. Jervis chairs the Historical Review Panel for CIA and is an Intelligence Community associate. His current research includes the nature of beliefs, IR theory and the Cold War, and the links between signaling and perception.

Publications

Books

Robert Jervis, “Snowden: Traitor or Hero (a Comment),” Intelligence and National Security (forthcoming).

Robert Jervis, The Illogic of American Nuclear Strategy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984).

Robert Jervis,Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976).

Book Chapters

Robert Jervis, “Our New and Better World,” in Still a Western World? eds. Sergio Fabbrini and Raffaele Marchetti (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2016).

Robert Jervis, “International Relations Theory,” in Explaining the History of American Foreign Relations, Third Edition, ed. Frank Costigliola and Michael Hogan (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2016).

Robert Jervis, “The Cuban Missile Crisis: What Can We Know, Why Did it Start, How Did it End?” in The Cuban Missile Crisis: A Critical Reappraisal, eds. Len Scott and G. Gerald Hughes (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2015).

Robert Jervis, “The United States and Iran: Perceptions and Policy Traps,” in U.S.-Iran Misperceptions: A Dialogue, ed. Abbas Maleki and John Tirman (London, UK: Bloomsbury, 2014).

Robert Jervis, “Causation and Responsibility in a Complex World,” Back to Basics: State Power in a Contemporary World, ed. Martha Finnemore and Judith Goldstein (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2013).

Robert Jervis, “Explaining the War in Iraq,” Why Did the United States Invade Iraq?, ed. Jane Cramer and Trevor Thrall (New York: Routledge, 2011).

Robert Jervis, “Identity and the Cold War,” The Cambridge History of the Cold War, ed. Melvyn Leffler and Odd Arne Westad (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010).

Robert Jervis, “Morality, Policy, and Theory,” in The Invention of International Relations Theory, ed. Nicholas Guilhot (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010).

Robert Jervis, “The US in a New World: An Empire But We Can’t Keep It,” Imbalance of Power – US Hegemony and International Order, ed. William Zartman (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2009).

Robert Jervis, “Political Science Perspectives on the Origins of World War II,” The Origins of World War Two: The Debate Continues, ed. Robert Boyce and Joseph A. Maiolo (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave MacMillan, 2003).

Robert Jervis, “Conclusion: Interaction and International History,” in The Transformation of European Politics, 1763-1848: Episode or Model in Modern History?, ed. Peter Kruger and Paul Schroeder (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003).

Robert Jervis, “Diplomatic History and International Relations: Why are they Studied so Differently?” Bridges and Boundries: Historians, Political Scientists, and the Study of International Relations, ed. Miriam Fendius Elman and Colin Elman (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001).

Robert Jervis, “The Drunkard’s Search,” Current Approaches to Political Psychology, ed. Shanto Iynegar and William McGuire (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1994).

Robert Jervis, “What Do We Want to Deter and How Do We Deter It?,” in Turning Point: The Gulf War and U.S. Military Strategy, ed. L. Benjamin Ederington and Michael Mazarr (Boulder: Westview Press, 1994).

Robert Jervis, “The Political Psychology of the Gulf War,” in The Political Psychology of the Gulf War, ed. Stanley Renshon (University of Pittsburg Press, 1993).

Robert Jervis, “Foreign Policy and Congressional/Presidential Relations,” The Constitution and National Security, ed. Howard Shuman and Walter Thomas (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 1990).

Robert Jervis, “The Costs of the Quantitative Study of International Relations,” Contending Approaches to International Politics, ed. Klaus Knorr and James Rosenau (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1968).

Journal Articles

Robert Jervis, “Pinker the Prophet,” The National Interest, no. 116 (2011): 54.

Robert Jervis, “Comment on John Gaddis, George F. Kennan” (review essay), H-Diplo (2012).

Robert Jervis, “Force in Our Times,” International Relations 25, no. 4 (2011): 403. An expanded version is in Psychology, Strategy, and Conflict: Perceptions of Insecurity in International Relations, edited by James Davis. Routledge, 2012.

Robert Jervis, “The Costs of the Scientific Study of Politics: An Examination of the Stanford Content Analysis Studies,” International Studies Quarterly 11, no. 4 (1967): 366.

Other Articles

Robert Jervis, “President Trump and IR Theory,” International Security Studies Forum Policy Series, American and the World–2017 and Beyond, 2 January 2017 <https://warontherocks.com/2016/12/thomas-c-schelling-a-reminiscence/> (2 January 2017).